lang1003 week 4.1
TRANSCRIPT
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8/19/2019 Lang1003 Week 4.1
1/13
The plus-sized comedian Dawn
French would be unlikely to
describe herself as a sex symbol,
but was she simply born at the
wrong time? “f had been
around when !ubens waspainting, would ha"e been
re"ered as a fabulous model,#
she once $uipped% “&ate 'oss?
(ell, she would ha"e been thepaintbrush%#
The plus-sized comedian Dawn
French would be unlikely todescribe herself as a sex symbol,
but was she simply born at the
wrong time? “f had been
around when !ubens waspainting, would ha"e been
re"ered as a fabulous model,#
she once $uipped% “&ate 'oss?
(ell, she would ha"e been the
paintbrush%#
1st: (open,present/future)
If I have enoughmoney, I will go to Japan.
2nd: (unreal, present)If I had enoughmoney, I would go to Japan.
3rd: (unreal, past)If I had had enough
money, I would havegone to Japan.
Condition
als
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8/19/2019 Lang1003 Week 4.1
2/13
French may ha"e been talking
in )est, but her point is a seriousone% Do standards of beauty
change o"er time? *r are some
features uni"ersally accepted,
across the centuries and acrosscultures, as being uni"ersally
appealing?
French may ha"e been talking
in )est, but her point is a seriousone% Do standards of beauty
change o"er time? *r are some
features uni"ersally accepted,
across the centuries and acrosscultures, as being uni"ersally
appealing?
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8/19/2019 Lang1003 Week 4.1
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There are e"en some good
e"olutionary reasons why beauty
might be timeless% +ertain biological
features might signal health, fitness,and fertility the makings of good
mate and we should find these
features sexually attracti"e% et the
more biologists and psychologists
ha"e looked, the harder it has been tofind a purely biological basis for
beauty%
Has our notion of beautyalways been the same?
There are e"en some good
e"olutionary reasons why beauty
might be timeless% +ertain biological
features might signal health, fitness,and fertility the makings of good
mate and we should find these
features sexually attracti"e% et the
more biologists and psychologists
ha"e looked, the harder it has been tofind a purely biological basis for
beauty%
If I am riher, I will !ehappier. "he riher I am,
the happier I will!e.
If !iologists and
psyhologists haveloo#ed more, it has!een harder to $nda purely !iologial!asis for !eauty.
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8/19/2019 Lang1003 Week 4.1
4/13
%onsider the apparentlyreeived wisdom that weprefer symmetrial, evenly!alaned features. "hesienti$ e&planation seems
sound: disease and stressduring hildhood ouldsu!tly in'uene the !odysdevelopment, reating an
insta!ility* that leads oneside to grow slightlydi+erently to the other. slightly lopsided fae shouldtherefore !e a sign of
physial wea#ness - ma#ing
nother way:
slightly lopsidedfae should therefore!e a sign of physialwea#ness, whih
ma#es them lessappealing as theparent of yourhildren.%an you $ndanother e&le in
this paragraph
artiipialhrase
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8/19/2019 Lang1003 Week 4.1
5/13
The problem had been that many of
the pre"ious experiments had asked
)ust a small number of sub)ects to ratedifferent faces making it easier for
fluke results to )ump out% (hen .tefan
/an Dongen at the 0ni"ersity of
1ntwerp conflated the results in a
large meta-analysis, he found the
effect almost disappears when you
consider enough people% n fact, facial
symmetry may not e"en say much
about your health% 1lthough pre"ious
research had found some e"idence for
the idea, a 2345 study took 6D scansof nearly 7,333 teenagers and $uizzed
them about their medical history% t
found that those with the
most symmetrical features had been
no fitter than the others%
Idiom
God helps those who helpthemselves.
助己者,天助之
n formal contexts, we can
use that and those as
substitutes meaning 8the
one9s:;<
nother e&le ofpartiipial phrase.
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8/19/2019 Lang1003 Week 4.1
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=iologists had also hypothesised that
we prefer faces that epitomise the
8manliness; or 8femininity; of their
gender< the broad )aw of Jon Hammfor men> the delicate features of
Miranda Kerr for women% 1gain, the
rationale was sound< bone structure
reflects the sex hormones pumping
through our blood, so they couldad"ertise a woman;s fertility and traits
like dominance in men important
considerations when picking a partner%
soand for that reason0therefore
so thatto e&plain or show a
purpose
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8/19/2019 Lang1003 Week 4.1
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In some places, feminine-looking menrule over their masculinecounterparts
et most studies had only examined
(estern societies% (hen sabel .cott
at =runel 0ni"ersity, and colleagues,
decided to cast their net wider across communities in 1sia, 1frica,
.outh 1merica and !ussia, they found
a "ariety of preferences% n fact, it was
only in the most urbanised regions that
they found the strong attraction tomore masculine men and more
feminine women> in the smaller, more
remote communities, many women
actually preferred the more “feminine#
looking men%
void repeating a
word in a paragraph.
ne way is to writethe di+erent forms ofthe word.
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8/19/2019 Lang1003 Week 4.1
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The same goes for body shape% n the
(est, people may prize longer legs inwomen while preferring less “lanky
men#, yet the nomadic imba society
in @amibia ha"e the opposite tastes%
A"en (estern preferences seem to
ha"e shifted o"er time> =otticelli;s
/enus once the (estern ideal of
beauty has shorter legs, compared to
her body, than the desired shape for
models today%: 1nd although an
hourglass figure in women, and men
with broad, /-shaped shoulderstapering at the waist, are admired in
most places, the ideal extremes
depend on the society%
while !ut0
ompared with the fatthat yet- used to add something
that seems surprising
!eause ofwhat you have ust
said
although (4 !ut) does not go with !ut*
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8/19/2019 Lang1003 Week 4.1
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Where starvation is a risk,heavier weight is moreattractive
Berhaps our choice of mate needs to be flexible,so we can choose the best partner based on our
current circumstances% “For example, in cultures
where star"ation is a real risk, preferences for
hea"ier weight in partners is expected because
those indi"iduals are most resistant to food
shortages,# says 1nthony Cittle at the 0ni"ersityof .tirling and indeed, this does seem to be the
case% =y the same token, someone who faces
higher risk of illness will be more primed to "alue
the signs that signal good health like facial
symmetry compared to those who are relati"ely
safe from infection% (hen dominance is "alued,meanwhile, women may also prefer men with
s$uarer chins and higher testosterone% “(e;"e
found, for example, that exposure to cues of
male-male competition, such as seeing men fight
each other, increases women;s preferences for
masculine male faces,# he says%
5edge words- to e&press aution
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8/19/2019 Lang1003 Week 4.1
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.o although our concepts of beauty
may seem ethereal and timeless, they
may )ust be the direct product of our
immediate circumstances% t;s alsoworth noting the effect of conformity<
study after study has found that if you
hear or see that someone else is
attracted to someone, you are more
likely to fancy them yourself% n this
way, tastes for certain types of people
could spread throughout a population,
shaping our norms for what we
consider beautiful% “The benefit of this
is that you dont ha"e to learn
e"erything for yourself and can benefitfrom the experience of others,# Cittle
says% “(hat is interesting in modern
society is that social media can mean
this learning could be on a worldwide
scale%#
6ore
e&les ofhedge words
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8/19/2019 Lang1003 Week 4.1
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If somebody else dubs you attractive,the perception can be contagious
+onsider this recent experiment from
Eohns opkins +arey =usiness .chool
in =altimore% The researchers used a
dating website that allowed users to
rate random people% 1fter they had
made up their mind, some users were
shown the a"erage score from other"isitors% 1lthough there was no “right#
or “wrong# answers, the users soon
learnt which types were pro"ing more
popular, and started to score other
faces along similar lines% .oon,e"eryone;s taste had con"erged their
concept of beauty had shifted, )ust by
using the website% This is despite the
fact that it was completely anonymous
there was no benefit to going with thestatus $uo%
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t is easy to imagine how this kind of
herd beha"iour has benefited certain
celebrities% *n a smaller scale, you
can achie"e similar effects simply by
being seen with people who you could
potentially couple off with, such as
members of the opposite sex% *thers
will assume that you are already a hit,and follow suit%
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*ur attraction is also shaped by
familiarity< the more people see youwith a certain appearance, the more
attracti"e it can appear% n a time when
cosmetic surgery is becoming the
norm, this offers an important lesson%
nstead of changing your unusuallooks to suit the fashions of the time,
you could instead use your looks to
change the fashion%